


Who Will Love You (Who Will Fight?)

by dimeliora



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Dark Character, Knotting, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Mpreg, Oral Sex, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 23:30:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2447075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimeliora/pseuds/dimeliora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared Padalecki is an omega in an alpha's world, making a name for himself as a tattoo artist and fighting for respect and recognition. Sure, his boss is a jerk and his apartment is a craphole, but he's doing what he wanted. Right up until his co-workers start dropping dead and he meets his mate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartblowswild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartblowswild/gifts).



If he’d ever actively thought about it, and Jared can’t say he has, he probably assumed that the first time he saw someone die it would be a relative and the cause would be old age. Or illness. The movies depict it as somewhat sad, a little bittersweet, and ultimately cathartic. Family members gathered around a bed, holding hands and remembering the good times, and the loved one in question slipping peacefully into death.

That’s not how it happens though, and Jared doubts there will ever be a Sarah McLachlan montage in his memories that bittersweetly reminds him of this moment. Instead Jared is walking outside with one of his coworkers, one of his less-liked coworkers granted, but a man he knows fairly well, and the guy is in the middle of a story about a strip club and an omega performer he was apparently able to talk into extra services.

And then he was silent, and Jared was covered in specks of blood and worse. It was really impressive actually, how silent everything suddenly went. No more traffic noise, birds stopped chirping, the wind itself quit blowing. All that was left was the falling body and Jared staring at where his acquaintance’s head used to be.

Jared blinked several times, trying to take it in, and then the noises rushed back, the sounds of screams, and Jared realized someone was shooting towards him. He hit the ground so hard he was fairly sure he broke something, and then covered his head with his arms. Jared didn’t know much about guns, just the prerequisite information any Texan child is given when it comes to shotguns and hunting, but he figured if the bullet was powerful enough to rip Mikhail’s head apart it was probably too powerful for his arms to stop it.

Still, covering his head seemed like a good idea.

He stayed there until the cops told him he could get up, and the EMTs looked him over and disinfected the places where gravel had torn through his knees and hands when he fell and bandaged them up, and then he drove himself home.

For hours Jared simply sat on his couch staring at the slightly peeled piece of wallpaper over his window, until exhaustion took him down into sleep, and when he woke up the world seemed both infinitely larger and scarier, and not changed at all. Mikhail was already replaced before he came in.

That was how Jared was introduced to the spectacle of death, and in retrospect he should have taken it as a sign. His job wasn’t terribly great. His apartment was small and lonely, and he had no real friends. Watching Mikhail’s head explode should have been the moment Jared decided it was finally time to really change something.

But he went back to work the next day, and that was how the rest of it came about. How Jared’s introduction to death became the catalyst for the rest of his life.

He’d never been good at changing things. Stubborn and set in his ways, Jared had spent his entire life picking one path and sticking to it. Aggressive, self-righteous, antagonistic Jared, his ex-girlfriend had said about him. Always willing to start a fight if he felt he was in the right. Always willing to join an argument even if it meant angering an alpha. It had driven Sandy away so quickly that he wasn’t even sure it could be called a relationship.

And back then he’d regretted it a little, bought self-help tapes on how to be more complacent and never listened to them, but now…

Now Jared thinks of that mindset, of that time, and he wonders if maybe that wasn’t what spelled out his doom. Everyone had told him he was making a mistake. An omega in an alpha’s world. Trying to carve out a little niche for himself, make a place that wouldn’t be forgotten. If he had stayed in Texas, settled down, and simply joined local activism groups would he still be the boy his parents were so proud to have raised?

Because what he is now, well, it scares him a little.

 

\----

Jared loves and hates his job. The number of customers he sees in a week that want something new and original he can count on one hand with fingers left over, but when they do come in he’s always ready for the challenge.

Mostly he does nautical stars, Eastern orthodox buildings with towering spires, cats and spiders, and religious icons galore. Jared can draw the Madonna and Child in his sleep, and while it certainly requires attention to detail and skill, the repetition is a little maddening. But, the shop he’s working in has an incredible reputation and they were willing to hire an unmated omega. The experience is invaluable.

The customer base, and his coworkers, could use a little work.

He is one of five artists, and the only one that’s not Russian. Jared briefly flirted with the idea of getting some language tapes so he could understand what they’re saying when they speak in their mother tongue, but ultimately dismissed it as not the best of ideas. From the way they look at him sometimes Jared gets the sense that he doesn’t really want to know what’s going on in their heads.

More importantly, if Jared is totally honest, he doesn’t want to know _them_. His coworkers aren’t exactly friendly to him, he expected that, and they’ve made it clear that he’s there as a novelty act. His rebellion seems childish in the face of the condescension he gets from the alphas he works with.

But no other shop was willing to even give him a chance as a joke. When Vitaly agreed to take him on with no professional experience and half an art degree Jared had been incredibly excited. He’d honestly believed that he would prove himself as an artist and shove it in the faces of all the other alpha shop owners that had mocked him. Now he just makes it through the day as alpha after alpha rolls through his little booth waiting for Jared to finish the subscribed designs and taking none too subtle sniffs of him in the process.

And he’s good. It’s the most insulting part really. Jared is good. But they only seem to want to comment on the fact that he’s sassy or a spitfire. They press vodka on him in the hopes that he’ll make the same mistake he made his first week there and get drunk enough that they can talk him into flirting and stripping a little. They chart his heat cycles on the wall calendar and whistle and howl when he comes into work close to the start of one.

Jared refuses to quit though. Not even the day after Mikhail dies when he’s spent the whole night sitting up and remembering the sight of his coworker’s head exploding does Jared consider the possibility of giving up. Because he’s doing something here. He has a small group of clients that are willing to come in, all omegas, that want nothing but Jared’s personal touch on their skin.

When he was growing up he used to spend all his time in the one tattoo parlor run by an omega in San Antonio. The proprietor, and main artist, was named Mark and he came from England where the relations between the genders weren’t quite so antiquated. His accent only helped the way he delivered the driest of sarcasm to anyone who dared question him and his position.

And Mark earned his place in San Antonio. He started in alpha-run parlors and learned from the roughest and meanest people in Texas. His anecdotes about his time tattooing for a bike club still haunt Jared, because there were just too many times he barely escaped some alpha just grabbing him and making him into someone else. Someone that had no dreams and no independence. No drive to do something better or bigger with his life than warm an alpha’s bed.

Some omegas were pushing their way through political positions, making waves in the media, but Jared had seen how Mark affected a community.  Anyone who wanted the best ink in San Antonio had to see Mark Sheppard. He was in a position to influence them subtly. It started with them having to watch their mouths around him, and ended with his talent and humor gaining their respect. Word spread, and Jared would accept no one else to do his first tattoo. Or his next three.

From the first vintage postcard-style rendering of the Death card across the right side of Jared’s chest, to the scratchy lined ink crow crouching on a skull that graced his thigh, Mark had drawn every permanent line on his body. He had agonized over Jared with the message he had wanted to convey, the theme that would best bring it out, and what would grow with Jared over time.

Jared wasn’t the willowy little kid that had started following Mark around back then, but Jared’s hero worship hadn’t diminished a bit. And when he saw the shop that would finally take him he hadn’t missed that the majority of his clientele would be the rough sort that Mark had talked about once upon a time. That there was a good chance more than a few of them were convicts, and that Jared wasn’t being fantastical or prejudiced due to their Russian accents.

Vitaly barks from across the shop, and Jared scrambles to get into position for his next customer. The alpha is huge, reeks of strange tobacco and booze, and he stares blearily at Jared through eyes full of veins before practically crashing into the chair. Vitaly tells Jared, as he always does, what the tattoo will be and how Jared should handle it. And Jared nods and then gathers the needle clusters and ink he’ll use to properly mark the big alpha.

He starts with the dagger on the alpha’s neck, carefully marking out the blade and hilt ratio before filling in the lines. This one is simpler not just because of how many times he’s done it, but because he doesn’t have to alter anyone else’s work to get it done. The next one is a little tougher, but he has a fair amount of experience.

Jared is in the middle of expanding the church on the alpha’s back and adding a new steeple. This one takes a more detailed eye, and it’s why Vitaly has given him the job. Jared’s good about figuring out proportions, taking the original work and expanding upon it naturally, and making it so that the new steeple doesn’t throw off the balance of the older ones.

The big alpha grumbles his way through the process, words that Jared can’t understand fired off to Vitaly through bad breath until Jared is pretty sure he’s both drunk and nauseated simply from smelling it. And then he hears Mikhail’s name in the middle of it.

Jared licks his lips as Vitaly’s response comes, still in undecipherable Russian, but the tone is clear as day. Vitaly is angry. Really, _really_ angry, and that’s weird because Vitaly always hated Mikhail. As far as Jared understood Mikhail was a family hire, someone that Vitaly was forced to take on and gave the shit work to in response.

But Vitaly’s rage is evident. He spits when he talks, hands flying angrily, and Jared figures that maybe the bonds of family are strong no matter how annoying said family is. Jared’s never had that problem. His family doesn’t understand him, or particularly care for his decisions, but they’ve never been assholes about it. He misses them sometimes, but his lifestyle hasn’t allowed him to visit much. And his nature keeps him from calling regularly to hear about how he’s wasting his life.

And Vitaly’s voice drops to a hush, and the anger is totally gone. He says something, and the big sleepy alpha looks up with suddenly clear and piercing eyes. He licks his lips, and then very quietly says two word.

“Santa Muerte.”

It’s odd to hear it for so many reasons. Jared grew up around Spanish speakers, knows enough of it to get by and get along with a fair number of people, and in the Russian alpha’s rough accent it comes out much less fluid and melodic than he’s used to hearing. He knows without having to consider what it means, would even without his slight conversational understanding of the language due to the pop culture aspects of it, but he’s never expected to hear it here or from this group of people.

Jared can’t put his finger on why it bothers him so much. It’s not the term itself, but the fact that the Russian alpha has used the Spanish language to describe something that is a proper noun. There’s no reason for it. There are certainly Russian analogues for Saint and Death, and whatever he’s trying to say should be covered by that. But instead the alpha used the _Spanish_ for it. And that suggests that it’s something named specially. It could be any number of things, Jared knows that Vitaly is not the cleanest of citizens, but the look on his boss’s face when it’s hanging in the air and practically echoing in the small tattoo space suggests that it’s not something Vitaly has control over.

That it is, instead, something Vitaly seriously fears. And that makes Jared pause in his work because he’s never seen Vitaly afraid of anything. Not when the cops raided the place two months after Jared started working here, and Jared knew for a fact that Vitaly was in possession of some seriously illegal drugs that day. Not when that little Italian group of assholes showed up waving bats and claiming they were here for protection and if Vitaly didn’t cooperate he’d have to pay in blood.

Not even when the tweaker that Mikhail had been working on had lost his shit in the middle of the shop and started waving a gun around and screaming about the feds and aliens. Never. But now Vitaly looks scared. The color has gone out of his face, and the man stands perfectly still with his tongue locked in position to swipe across his lips and his eyes wide.

And then the moment shatters as Timur comes crashing around the corner with a huge grin on his face and an armful of ink boxes that are seconds away from crashing to the floor and scattering wildly. Vitaly spins on one foot and slaps the younger alpha’s head none too gently before disappearing into the stockroom with him.

Jared’s client falls back into silent contemplation as Jared works, and is snoring by the time he finishes his tattoo.

 

\----

 

The shop is closed on Sundays and Mondays. This means that Jared can go out on Saturday night to get his kicks, and then come home and crash all of Sunday night and Monday morning before doing his weekly shopping and finishing off his laundry.

Los Angeles is awash in bars that market themselves as omega friendly, but the majority of them seem to be for tiny little things who want an alpha to sweep them up off their feet and show them that partying is inferior to the joy of being truly mated. Of course, Jared would be willing to bet that the omegas that buy into this cinematic ideal don’t ever consider the fact that meeting and recognizing your mate in a club oversaturated in scent and sound is almost impossible. Being “fated,” if the myths are true, doesn’t overcome having all of your senses hampered by the environment.

Jared would, of course, remind anyone he told this to that he didn’t chose a much quieter and simpler bar because he wanted to find his mate. Quite the opposite actually. The alphas and omegas that met at Jared’s favorite establishment were really only interested in casual hookups. It was understood that it was on the omega’s terms, and when they called it quits that was the end of it. Which made the number of alphas there pretty slim, but that was another bonus for Jared.

Every week he would park himself at the bar and survey the territory before deciding if there was anyone worth his time. Jared wasn’t too keen on considering how few he’d found, and of that number how many he had actually managed to hook up with. He had, on the other hand, gone home with a beta once or twice.

Considering the level of heat suppressants he was currently on Jared was capable of being choosy. The doctors had warned him if he ever met his true mate then the drugs wouldn’t work at all, but Jared considers that a pretty safe bet. If it means that he’ll never go into a surprise heat around his coworkers Jared is willing to take the headaches and risk the infertility.

It’s not like he wants kids in the first place.

Jared orders his usual from the bartender and smiles flirtatiously as he takes the drink. He’d never hook up with the alpha, is pretty sure the guy is mated actually, but it never hurts to add a smile. And a huge tip. He settles back in his bar seat and stretches out his long legs.

The crowd is thin tonight for some reason, probably events at the other clubs that Jared doesn’t know about, and as a result he recognizes almost everyone in the room around him. He makes eye contact with a few, smiling and nodding, and figures he’ll finish a few more drinks and dance before heading home. Until a soft voice to the left of him orders a Jameson and Ginger ale, and Jared casually turns to glance at the owner of the voice and loses his breath.

He can smell him over the fainter scents of his fellow patrons. Woodsy, the scent of the long-needled pines in Texas, and the breeze on an autumn day carrying the distant promise of bonfires. Jared takes a long deep breath, unable to even attempt subtlety. The alpha stops in the middle of lifting his glass, looks over at Jared, and their eyes lock.

A little shorter than Jared, but wider in the chest and definitely more solid. His lips are pink, perfect, and surrounded by light stubble. A perfectly carved nose sits between two eyes a mixture of green and gold shades that match the pine in his scent, and Jared can’t remember what the fuck he’s supposed to be doing right now because those eyes are settled on him with an intensity and surety that Jared is vaguely concerned will light him on fire.

Or maybe it already has, because every inch of skin on his body seems to be alive with sensation, and Jared’s hands spasm once before reaching out and grabbing the alpha’s jacket. Jared is wet, embarrassingly so, and he pulls the alpha in and takes a deep breath somewhere in the realm of his sternum. Then he lets out a moan and pulls again, but the alpha is already pressed so close to him that Jared is practically trying to push through his clothes to what must be glorious and smooth skin underneath.

Thousands of light-years away the bartender laughs before saying something, but it gets lost in the haze that has descended on Jared. All he knows is that he needs the alpha inside of him, and right now. That he needs him there forever.

Distantly, Jared--the Jared who packed all his belongings into two duffel bags and hitchhiked his way out to Los Angeles with seven hundred bucks and a dream to defy all expectations--begins to scream. Because this is it. This is what he’s spent so much time avoiding. This is why he didn’t pick one of the major cities in Texas that was so much closer to home and also lacking an omega tattoo artist.

He honestly believed that if he surrounded himself with people who would think his accent was just a bit too shitkicker for their tastes, who would laugh at the silly country boy, or not understand his occasional bone-deep _need_ for good barbeque, he could put this off.

But here it is. Here is the one. And Jared knows it with every fiber of his being. Can’t rebel against it or push through it. Instead Jared is already letting himself be lifted, pulled away from the bar and outside before being manhandled into a sleek black car. He hits the leather too forcefully, is separated from his mate too fast, and then the alpha is back in his reach and settling behind the wheel.

Jared can’t stop touching, knows it’s dangerous and that it’s hindering their ability to get somewhere away from the bar, but fuck he _needs_. He pushes harder at the clothes that keep him from his goal, and hears a dark growl come out of his mate before the car echoes it and they’re moving through the night. Jared can’t believe himself, but he’s sliding down on the bench seat and unzipping the alpha’s pants to get a deep whiff of that scent. It’s concentrated, pure, and Jared moans before burying his face in his mate’s crotch and pressing his nose against the already hard cock trapped under a layer of cotton.

Above him the alpha is making noises that aren’t even human, hips shifting slightly to move Jared’s nose against the line of his dick and to get them closer. The car roars with him when Jared slides his tongue out and presses it against the material and the cock underneath, their bodies shifting with the increase in speed, and then Jared slides away when the car takes a sharp turn, and he’s pulled back seconds later and lifted bodily out of the seat.

The ground is eaten by the alpha’s stride, and Jared hears the slide of a keycard before they’re using what he thinks is a guest entrance into a hotel. Except the line of doors is hard to focus on in the overwhelming presence of his mate, and when they go through another door all Jared can see is the big bed in the center of the room.

He bounces once on the mattress before the alpha, his mate, lands on top of him. Jared rips at the man’s shirt, and takes a deep breath when he sees a gorgeous rendition of the Tower that mirrors the placement of his own Death card tattoo. The alpha isn’t talking, still mixing growls with moans, and Jared’s own shirt comes off in a flurry of movement. Lips brush against his neck, down over his collarbone, and then settle on his right nipple while deft hands remove his wet pants and boxers and strip his shoes without any sort of pause.

Jared is naked, spread out over an incredibly soft bedspread, and he arches his hips up in invitation and laughs darkly when the alpha curses at the sight and struggles with his own pants. And then the man is naked, and his hands are stroking Jared’s calves once gently before they grip his ankles and pull to flip Jared over. He lands on his stomach, slides his knees up to so he can push his ass into the air, and a warm tongue slips along the back of his thighs and across one ass cheek before the alpha finds his mark and starts lapping up Jared’s slick at the source.

He’s pretty sure he’s going mad.

It’s not like no one has ever licked Jared out before, taken their time with it and gone slow, but Jared has never needed it this bad before. This is _heat_ , the way he vaguely remembers it before he got put on the suppressants, and while it should horrify him instead it only turns him on more. To think that this man was made for him and him alone.

And how fucking lucky that the guy is not only super-hot, but more talented with his tongue than any partner Jared has ever been with before. His mate is licking and sucking at him like he wants every last drop, and one callused and strong hand caresses Jared’s balls before gripping Jared’s hard dick and starting to jerk. Jared comes seconds later, not even a little embarrassed at how fast he was, and the alpha continues to lick him through it until Jared actually mewls and tries to pull away, too sensitive to continue.

Then the alpha’s mouth is gone, and Jared misses it for a second before the blunt head of the alpha’s dick is pressing against his hole and then sliding smoothly into him. From the feel of it, Jared’s mate is almost as well-endowed as Jared himself is. Which is pretty impressive.

Rational thought flees him when the alpha is fully sheathed, and then Jared rocks back into the big, strong hands gripping his hips in a punishing hold before the alpha begins to jackhammer into him. The big cock spearing him, hitting his prostate randomly and spreading him wide and full, makes Jared’s own dick stir back to attention. He’s barely able to stay on his knees as the alpha drives him forward with the force of his thrusts, and then Jared feels the beginning of the alpha’s knot swelling.

Distantly he considers that this whole thing is happening fast. That even if this is the way they portray it in movies and books this is still all too fast. He knows absolutely nothing about the man inside of him, they aren’t even using protection, and there’s nothing that Jared can do about any of that once he’s knotted.

But that’s distant, because Jared’s mouth is spewing a torrent of filth, demanding that the alpha knot him right now. He feels the brush of skin against his back, and then lips brush his ear.

“Pushy.”

It may be the first thing his mate has actually said to him, and it makes Jared’s blood boil in a different way. He pushes back slamming himself onto the alpha’s knot and grins viciously when he hears a hissing intake of breath and a sharp curse.

“You have no idea.”

His mate’s knot swells the last little bit, locking them together, and Jared comes untouched as the alpha starts to empty into him. They’re tied together, and Jared shifts just a little before he’s grabbed around the waist and maneuvered onto his side. Warm lips press against his neck, and Jared revels in the sensation of the firm body wrapped around him and the comfortable sense of being filled and sated. His heart is slowing down, limbs becoming lethargic and eyes heavy, and sleepily Jared pushes hair out of his face and turns his head as much as he can.

“Jared.”

His mate grins once, looking just as tired as Jared feels, and settles a little closer into Jared.

“Jensen.”

And that, Jared thinks as he drifts off, is the name of my mate.

 

\----

 

When Jared wakes up he knows three things.

He’s sore, in a good way, the way he associates with an intense and powerful workout. It feels good to stretch his limbs and revel in the pull and burn of muscles that got a better workout than he had expected.

And that leads to the second bit of knowledge. Jared has found his mate. Which changes everything. He knows nothing about the alpha. He doesn’t know Jensen’s last name, what he does for a living, or how traditional he is. For all Jared knows, when his mate wakes up he’ll already be planning how long he can keep Jared barefoot and pregnant before he gets tired of spawning or Jared’s body gives out.

Which leads to the last revelation. Jared is not in heat anymore. The typical mate meeting spawns a full heat cycle, three days of neediness and desperation, because mates need the time to properly bond. But Jared just went into heat last night. And that means Jared is already pregnant. Both his suppressants and his birth control failed him last night.

Also, if he’s keeping score, his common sense.

Jared looks around the hotel room for the first time. It’s lavish, well-appointed, and that means that his mate is either really good at finding vacation deals or fairly well off. He slips carefully out of the bed and crosses quietly to the haphazard pile of clothes before finding Jensen’s pants. The wallet tucked in the back pocket is thick, well-worn rich leather , and it contains a plethora of cards that Jared ignores in favor of reading the ID card in the front. Jensen Merriman.

Merriman.

He doesn’t want to be a Merriman. He certainly doesn’t feel very merry. There are no pictures in the wallet, nothing personal at all, and according to his driver’s license Jensen is from Colorado and four years older than Jared.

What happens next isn’t exactly the classiest or smoothest thing Jared has ever done, but he doesn’t feel he has much choice in the matter. Jared slips his clothes on as quietly as he can, looks back to the bed one more time to see the relaxed and handsome face of the sleeping alpha that he’s destined to be with, and then slips out of the room and down the hall. He puts his shoes on outside on the sidewalk, ignoring the knowing and ugly look from the concierge waiting outside, and then asks the man to get him a taxi.

And Jared goes home.

Everything is where he left it. His shitty little apartment is in perfect disorder, all his sketches spread out over the card table he eats on, his game system still in place and waiting for him to turn _Call of Duty_ back on and finish the last mission he started, and the glass of milk he drank yesterday morning before work is sitting on the table developing a skin just like it’s supposed to.

This is his life. This is what he fought for. What he’s been fighting for. The independence, the ability to control his own destiny and choose his own path, and he wants it. He wants it so bad it hurts. His hand lands on his flat stomach, pauses there, and he wonders how long he has until something begins to noticeably grow underneath the skin. How long until he starts to swell, until there’s a fluttering and kicking, until there’s _life_ inside of him.

Jared has never been very good about this sort of stuff. He was able to make the decision to leave everything he knew and throw himself into chaos because he always knew he could change his mind. Go back home and curl up on his parent’s couch with his family and forget he ever left.

But not now. Whatever Jared decides to do next is permanent, the same way for the rest of his life no other sexual partner will ever quite do it for him like Jensen will. He will pine. It has nothing to do with the alpha’s personality, because Jared doesn’t know what that is. He doesn’t know anything about him, isn’t in love with him, but biology demands that Jared be with him anyway.

Everything in him is already starting to scream that he’s supposed to be curled up in bed beside that warm, sleepy body and soaking in the smell of Jensen as he acclimates to being mated. But instead he is here. He’s home looking at his stuff and wondering if he’ll get to keep it. If he can afford to pay for his little loft and a baby. If he can handle the stress of raising a kid alone while still trying to fulfill his dream.

There are options. Jared’s always been open-minded about that sort of thing. Never joined the camp that omegas have no other choice than to carry and bear their children, raise them, and love them. He could go that route, terminate the pregnancy, or look into adoption possibilities.

But the thought of heading down to one of the family clinics and facing the picketers is overwhelming. If he’s lucky, and his recent track record makes that laughable, then he’ll get there during one of the rare times when there’s no protest group and no one to throw rocks at him or belittle him for the insane belief that he has some control over his body.

Jared’s dealt with enough conflict simply from his choice to use suppressants and birth control. He knows the culture of traditionalism, the hatred and spite that is so often turned on people like him, and it’s too much right now. Too much to even consider bearing. He has time to make a decision. He has time to figure out where he wants his life to go.

He has time.

With that rationalization in place Jared heads to the bathroom, turns the shower on full blast and high heat, and settles under the spray of hot water before he begins to cry.

There’s time to make a choice, and Jared will make it. But first he’ll get clean, get the scent of Jensen off of him, and then he’ll go out into the kitchen and microwave a few Hot Pockets, settle into his couch, and play some video games until he passes out. He’ll spend his day relaxing and make a choice later, and when he does it’ll be the right one and he’ll be fine.

Jared will be fine.


	2. Chapter 2

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks Vitaly.”

Jared hasn’t slept much since Sunday morning when he snuck out of the hotel room and made his careful way home. Sleep has just been too hard to come by. Despite his resolve in the shower his brain has circled back to the life that’s growing in him over and over again. Jared has considered every possibility a thousand times, and they all seem too final and too hard to bear. He wishes he had a time machine. That he could go back and just decide to spend the night at home playing his games and drinking beer on his couch.

Oh god, beer. He can’t drink beer anymore. He adds that to the ever-growing list of changes. Jared is going to go mad if he can’t get his brain off this endless loop of realization and panic.

He’s got one of his own customers coming in today, and the rest of his schedule is packed with Vitaly’s list of clients. It’s going to be a long day, and fairly routine. Which is good. Jared needs routine today. He needs to let his mind go and simply let his hands work. Watch himself create instead of spiral down the drain.

The Tower.

His brain returns to Jensen’s tattoo as he begins his first yowling pack of cats. The cats one he’s never understood. The rest--the religious icons and the weapons--those are designed to make them look tougher, but why the cats? Grown alphas getting…the Tower.

Jared had become obsessed with the Tarot in high school. He figures it’s the symbolism of it. The art changes from deck to deck, but the symbolism stays the same. Jared liked the idea of it. Portraying the same message over and over again but changing the delivery. It seemed like the epitome of creativity. To work within a series of lines at the same time you’re breaking them. He designed his own deck and used it. Read books after book about the history and practice of it.

Everything about the Tarot intrigued him. And as a result it was the first ink Jared had ever gotten. The Death card across his chest in the hopes that he could live up to its promise. That he could go through changes and renew himself. That he could reinvent the scrawny little omega who had seen a reading at a school fair and fallen in love with the idea of a world that was totally foreign to himself and his classmates.

And as far as Jared is concerned he succeeded. He managed to leave his hometown, to carve out a place for himself, and support himself in LA. He’d avoided all the clichés, refused to be subjugated, and kept himself out of the trouble that befell almost every one of his omega classmates.

Or he had. Until Saturday. Until he had to go to the stupid bar, the one that was supposed to avoid just this issue, and run into his goddamn mate. A slam brings him back to the present, and Jared’s eyes jerk up to see Vitaly staring at him darkly.

“Where the hell is Timur?”

Jared swallows and puts his tattoo gun down, the idiot he’s been working on looking up from his magazine at Vitaly with a fair amount of concern. His boss looks murderous.

“I don’t know. How the hell should I know?”

It’s risky. Jared isn’t necessarily afraid of Vitaly, not normally, but his boss looks like he’s on the verge of killing someone and Jared is sitting as his primary target right in this moment. And Jared isn’t little anymore, that’s not a problem, but inherent alpha strength and an extra fifty pounds gives Vitaly an advantage that Jared can’t hope to combat if his boss suddenly goes berserker on him.

Vitaly’s jaw tightens for a second before he bites off every word singularly.

“Find. Me. Timur.”

And Jared hops up, because as much as he’d love to ignore it a command with that much will laced in it from an alpha isn’t exactly something he’s biologically capable of ignoring. But his obedience is a kneejerk response, because underneath the seeming complacence Jared boils as he walks. How fucking dare Vitaly do that shit to him.

It’s not really socially acceptable for alphas to pull that shit, not _legal_ for an alpha to do such a thing to an employee, and Jared resents the hell out of it. The one thing he could always positively say about Vitaly until this moment was that his boss never pulled gender rank on him that way before.

Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but until this moment Jared has only ever been upset about the theoretical _possibility_ of it. Now that it’s happened there’s a sting that he can’t shake off. This is his life. Wasn’t it bad enough that his creativity was being consumed by the boring repetition of Vitaly’s customer base, but now he has to swallow down his pride for some knothead alpha bastard who thinks he can just tell Jared when he…

He’s pregnant.

It hits him again randomly, suddenly, and Jared puts his hand against the doorframe of the storage building outside as he takes a long and deep breath and holds himself up. He’s pregnant. And this is the life he’s currently considering bringing a kid into. His apartment is not the greatest, but his fellow tenants are excellent and it’s not a terrible neighborhood. But this. His work. The people Vitaly brings in are wannabe criminals at best and Vitaly is without a doubt a thug. Jared might willfully blind himself to the type of people he’s been around for so long, but he hasn’t missed the way they all defer to Vitaly no matter their size. He hasn’t been blind to the way people dip into the storage building on a regular basis who have no business there, and how no one mentions it or bats an eye.

Jared isn’t blind, but he hasn’t needed to know more. Not until now, because what if these people really are criminals on a much larger scale than he let himself believe? Mark told all those stories about the biker club, and how he got along with those people. None of them included him trying to raise a kid, and Jared believes that even Mark wouldn’t let those sorts of alphas near a child. Wouldn’t have endangered his offspring even if ostensibly he didn’t want any.

So how can Jared? Admittedly it hasn’t been that long, and Jared hasn’t even taken an official test to prove what he thinks he knows, but how could he have overlooked this? His coworker’s goddamn head had just exploded next to him, and at the time Jared had tried so hard to believe that it was just a random act of violence in a city that held so much of it underneath its skin. But now Jared has to really consider how obviously not random such a perfect shot was.

His hand strays towards his stomach, and then Jared pulls it away and shakes it off. Ridiculous. All of it. He’s acting like a blushing little omega, batting his eyelashes and fainting at the first sign of danger. And that’s not Jared. He’s lived in this den of criminality for too long without ever giving it a second thought. If he’s been safe all this time then until he decides what to do with the fetus growing inside of him it will be safe too.

Jared tries the knob, and when it opens without any hesitation he knows he’s found his missing coworker. He steps into the shady interior, shelves of inks and pre-packaged clusters blocking what little light there is and casting odd shadows. The rows are set close together, and Jared weaves through them with ease, figuring that if Timur is in here he’ll be in the back room that serves as Vitaly’s office. Jared’s never been in there himself, but he imagines that it’s as seedy as his boss is.

“Timur? Timur! Vitaly is pissed!”

There’s no response, and Jared is too annoyed to wait and make sure that the idiot isn’t doing something Jared doesn’t want to see. If he’s jacking off or some other dumbass move then he’ll have to deal with the embarrassment of being found because Jared needs to get him back into the shop, finish his day, and go home to really think over what he’s realized.

A thump from inside the office is the last thing he hears clearly, because the sight that greets him is so horrific Jared’s stomach lurches and his vision grays a little. Timur is in there alright, but his throat is slit, and he’s been hung from a coat hook mounted on Vitaly’s wall. Jared sways, hand over his mouth, and then there’s a scrape to his right and he turns.

Later, when he’s telling Vitaly about it but not the police, Jared will be able to describe flashes. A brief burst of black, maybe a ski mask or a hoodie, a hint of smoke, and then a burst of light before Jared lost consciousness.

But that’s later. In this moment Jared knows only that there is someone in the room with him, and that someone is the killer. And then he’s falling, the floor rushing at him before the world goes black.

 

\----

 

When Jared wakes up he’s in Vitaly’s car, the sounds of traffic muted by the Russian pop music blaring out of the speakers; his head hurts and his whole body feels slow and thick. Vitaly holds out a water bottle without a word, and Jared accepts it and sips slowly.

“What happened?”

Vitaly grunts, tongue slipping out to lick his lips before he engages his turn signal and makes a left that Jared recognizes as being incredibly close to his apartment.

“Someone killed Timur.”

He should bite it back. Vitaly has always had a temper, and the last week has brought it to the surface in ways that are entirely unhealthy. Jared should know better than to press, especially after Vitaly used the alpha-command earlier. Still, Jared’s own temper has always had a mind of its own.

“No shit. But what happened after?”

When he first started working for Vitaly Jared was always afraid his temper would get him hit. Mark had a story or two like that. Even now, with all the experience Jared has with the alpha, he’s surprised when instead Vitaly barks out a laugh.

Vitaly adds to Jared’s confusion by tousling his hair.

“Kid. One day you’ll be mated, and you’re gonna want to watch that smart mouth of yours. In the meantime it’s cute how much of a spitfire you are.”

“Never. What about the cops? I’m gonna need to give them a statement, Vitaly. Did you call them already?”

His boss’ face grows dark, serious, and he pulls up in front of Jared’s apartment building white knuckling his steering wheel.

“I have known Timur since he was little boy at his momma’s knee. You will have to understand that this is going to go a bit different. Someone killed the boy on my property, under my watch, you understand? So, you are not going to speaking to any cops.”

Jared takes a breath, his eyes fixed firmly on Vitaly, and waits for the laugh or the pause where the big alpha tells him that he’s joking or _something_ because the guy can’t really be saying that he expects Jared to…

But he is. Of course he is. And Jared is disgusted momentarily with himself for his stupidity. He’s mistaken Vitaly’s many slips of traditional behavior for some sort of friendship. How he can recognize one moment that Vitaly is dangerous and then forget it the next when the alpha’s warm and paternalistic manner pops out Jared doesn’t know.

“Yeah. Sure. No cops.”

Vitaly measures him for a moment and then nods. Face suspicious but not dangerous. Not visibly anyway.

“Good. I’ll see you in morning. Be safe Jared.”

And he nods, smiles, and then slips out of the car. His legs want to wobble, but Jared forces himself to walk upright and steady into his building. He doesn’t run, keeps his pace steady and slow, and makes his way upstairs and into his apartment where he locks all three locks behind him and collapses against the door.

He’s got to go. It’s time to go. This has gone too far. People are dying, he’s being brought into some sort of criminal conspiracy, and he’s carrying a baby and has run from his mate.

It’s time to go.

 

\---

 

When Jared originally thumbed his way to LA all he brought was what he could carry in two bags. Now that he looks around he realizes not much has changed. He’s collected things in his time here, but none of them are particularly important.

There’s a sock monkey that he was given by a particularly odd client who wanted the date their unpleasant mating was dissolved tattooed on her hip. She stitched little tattoos into it, and Jared fingers them for a moment before lifting it and putting it in his bag. He still doesn’t have a car, hasn’t needed one with all the public transportation, so if he’s leaving tonight he’s going to need to choose a method of transportation.

The bus will be slower, but harder to track. Jared is pretty sure he can pay for the ticket in cash. He’ll be tracked more easily on a plane, and to be honest he’s never been too fond of flying. But the plane is so much faster, and the minute he touches down on the ground in Texas he can head home and tell them everything. Call the police back here and explain what happened and why he had to run.

Jared is in the middle of throwing underwear into his pack when the knock sounds through the apartment, and for a moment his feet are glued to the floor. Jared isn’t sure if he should check who it is, or duck out the window of his bedroom and climb down the fire escape. His feet refuse to move, and the fist pounds again.

If he doesn’t check and it’s Vitaly simply checking on him then there could be more outside. He has a vivid fantasy of them using radios, reporting that he’s running and they better catch him. How many could be waiting outside for him right now? How many will be there to simply kill him? Or will they torture him?

But it could be the police. Maybe someone else at the shop told the cops, and they’ve come to get Jared into protective custody. Or maybe it’s simply one of his neighbors checking on him, because that happens too.

Jared walks to his kitchen slowly, feet making no noise on the worn old boards he knows so well, and he draws a knife out of the chopping block and then makes his way to the door. The peephole seems huge, will certainly give him away, and Jared imagines that what will greet him on the other side is the barrel of a gun.

Except it’s not the barrel of a gun, and it’s not Vitaly, and it’s not a neighbor.

It’s Jensen.

His heart triple times for a completely different reason, and Jared licks his lips. Even through the distortion of the peephole Jensen is impossibly handsome, and Jared shifts his grip on the knife and wonders how bad he looks right now. He’s been knocked unconscious, seen a dead body, worked a full day at the shop, and he hasn’t showered since he got home.

The sheer stupidity of his vanity hits him, and Jared opens the door to tamp it down before he realizes that there’s no way in hell Jensen should know where he lives. As a result Jared ends up pulling the knife halfway up in his grip at the same time he tries to smile politely.

Jensen’s face says the mixed signals are received and not understood.

“Uh. Hi. Jared.”

“Hi. How did you find me?”

Jensen blushes, freckles standing out that Jared missed the other night and lips just as pink and plush as Jared remembers them. Perversion stands prominent in his thoughts.

“I kinda…snuck a peek at your wallet after you passed out. Sorry. I know it wasn’t right, but I just wanted to know more about my mate.”

Jared has no right to judge, he knows that, but he’s irrationally angry. Alphas have thrown his entire life into a tailspin right now, and Jared is just about done with it.

“You ever heard of privacy?”

His mate’s eyes fall, and Jensen looks properly ashamed. Which only makes Jared feel worse and more defensive.

“Sorry man. I just. Yeah. So hey, uh, what’s with the knife?”

Jared looks down at it, hanging shiny in his grip, and then lowers the weapon before stepping back into the apartment.

“I was chopping vegetables. What did you want?”

A brow is lifted, and pink lips purse for half a second before Jensen’s voice comes out confused and amazed.

“Seriously? I came to- Jared you know what happened the other night right?”

It takes every ounce of his willpower to not respond with, _You mated and impregnated me before I figured out I’m caught up in serious criminal conspiracy, all my coworkers are dropping dead, and I’m in incredible danger._

“Yeah. I know. What did you want?”

Jensen huffs a breath, hand tousling his short hair and then making an aborted gesture.

“You. We’re mates. I want to get to know you. I came to get to know you. I don’t understand why that’s so hard, or why you took off that morning.”

Jared casts about for a reason, and then the perfect answer comes to him. He gestures to the bag he dropped in the hallway when the knocking started.

“I’m going on a trip and I needed to go into work to pick up my paycheck. Sorry. We’ll have to do this another time.”

Like never.

Jensen’s eyes show hurt, and Jared feels instantly guilty.

“Where are you headed?”

He hesitates, but there’s no reason not to answer. Vitaly doesn’t know who Jensen is, and Jensen himself seems more than completely harmless. The guy is practically curling in on himself. Not exactly normal alpha behavior.

“Texas. I’m going to visit my family.”

Jensen’s eyes light up, and he takes a half step toward Jared and then aborts the move.

“You’re from Texas too? Hey. What a coincidence! I’m from Texas.”

“Yeah. I thought I heard that.”

The smell is making him crazy, that bonfire and pine combination, and while it turns Jared on it brings the headache he expected earlier from getting knocked out back with a vengeance. Jared sways a little, and is surprised when a warm hand cups his elbow and holds him up.

“Hey man, you look pale, grab a seat.”

Jared takes the help, surprisingly, and once he’s seated he puts his head in his hands and takes deep breaths.

“You ok?”

He nods, licks his lips, and fights the urge to wring his hands or shuffle his feet like a nervous child.

“I just have a headache. Rough day. Listen, I really am sorry, and I know it was rude to take off, but this isn’t my thing.”

“Having a headache?”

“Having a mate.”

Jared realizes he’s a coward, but he can’t look up. He hears a low sound, and then the smell of Jensen is everywhere and those warm hands are resting on his knees.

“Listen. Listen Jared, I get that you’re the independent type ok? I can see that. But we’re- what we are isn’t a fluke and it’s not a one-night stand. I can’t let it be a one-night stand ok? We’re meant for each other. I didn’t bite you last night because I got the feeling you weren’t interested in that sort of commitment right away, but that doesn’t mean I’m not committed. If you want to take this slow and have me woo you I can. I’ll take as long as you want, ok? Just tell me what you need to make this work.”

A time machine, a thousand years, and an entirely new personality.

“Jensen, that’s really sweet but I’m not the mate for you. I can tell you that right now.”

There’s a half smile when he glances up, hurt and tremulous but there, and Jared’s heart breaks a little at seeing it.

“Is it how little ink I have? I can get more.”

Jared thinks of the Tower tattoo, the graceful and swooping lines, and then his train of thought from earlier in the day comes back to him.

“Why the Tower?”

The smile he gets this time is a little bitter, a little sad, and Jared is barely able to keep his hands to himself. Biology tries its hardest to get him to give in just a little bit.

“Because it seems like most of my life is wreck and ruin. Why Death?”

“All I’ve ever wanted to do was reinvent myself and promote change.”

Fingers, callused and warm, rub against Jared’s cheek. He’s unable to stop from leaning into them a little, and Jensen’s entire face lights up.

“Is that why you came out here? To reinvent yourself? Promote change?”

Jared manages to nod, swallowing around the lump in his throat, and Jensen’s fingers stroke his face again.

“I would never box you. I would never try to make you into something you’re not, or control you, and I promise that. I swear it here and now. All I want is to be together. Do you have to be alone to achieve your goals?”

Jared swallows hard and then reaches up and links his fingers with Jensen’s. The truth is right at the tip of his tongue. The honest answer that no, he could do it with someone, but first he’d have to tell Jensen that the mate he’s ended up with was willing to hide a baby from him, is part of something dark and frightening, and doesn’t seem to be able to stay in a healthy relationship due to an extreme character flaw is too hard to put into words.

Instead Jared takes the easier way.

“Can we…maybe try after I get back? Will you still be visiting here?”

He watches the alpha, his mate, swallow hard before he looks over at Jared’s bag.

“I could be. But…how are you getting to Texas?”

And Jared has nothing. He still hasn’t decided, really.

“I was thinking maybe the bus?”

Jensen’s face cramps tightly, and then he stands shaking his head.

“No. Hey. No, not the bus. That’s not safe. What if I. Could I take you? I’m headed back that way anyway. My business trip is basically over.”

Jared’s brain stutters. It’s a great solution. Vitaly could never track his movements through a stranger that he’s never met or even heard of.

Negatives run through his head at top speed, but ultimately Jared looks at the honest and open face in front of him and then makes a decision. Jensen might threaten his sense of self, is being betrayed on a very deep level by Jared’s silence, but he’s safe. And that’s everything right now. Jared can figure out the rest of it on the way.

And maybe a couple of days on the road will help him figure out what exactly he should do about Jensen even as it takes him far from Vitaly and all the mess back there.

“Yeah. Ok. That’d be great.”

“Good. Great. We’ll leave in the morning ok? I just need to take care of one last thing and then we’re good to go. Is that ok?”

Jared looks at how eager, how happy Jensen looks, and he wonders what he’s gotten himself into. How bad it will be when he finally lets Jensen down.

“Yeah. That’s great.”

He doesn’t sleep at all that night, brain racing and eyes moving around the darkened room as he tries to figure out just how he’s going to handle all this.

And if his hand keeps settling on his stomach? What of it?

 

\----

 

It’s earlier than Jared has gotten up in years, but when he stumbles downstairs with his two bags repacked and his eyes glued shut by sleep Jensen is already there in the big shiny black car waiting for him.

Jared accepts a cup of coffee, wonders if he’s allowed to drink it, and then sips it anyway. Jensen looks fresh, happy, and Jared tries to offer the ghost of a smile and is pretty sure he only manages something between a blank look and an offended scowl.

“Lesson number one: my mate is not a morning person.”

The offended scowl wins, but then wavers when Jensen responds with hearty laughter.

“Lesson number one: my mate is a dick.”

Jensen laughs more, and then pulls away from the curb and joins the flow of traffic. The car growls low and even, and Jared’s sleepless night says that the feel of the big car sliding smoothly along the roads and rumbling is the perfect lullaby. He sips the coffee a little more in the hopes that he can combat it.

“You know, I’m actually not a morning person either. I just got up several hours ago and have had _way_ more coffee than you.”

He sips his own drink and then places it in the cup holder. Jensen has classic rock playing low on the radio, and Jared toys with the idea of changing his music just to see what the alpha will do. Instead he turns the air conditioning up a little bit, and then sends Jensen a look questioning to see if that’s going to be a problem. The smile on his mate’s face says no.

“You run hot right? I noticed that the other night.”

Jared blushes, and sees the moment the double entendre hits Jensen’s brain and his mate turns red too.

“Oh shit. No. Not like that. Man, there goes my foot-in-mouth disease.”

“You’re kind of a dork.”

Jensen casts a glance Jared’s way, eyes sparkling and bright, and a smile twisting the corners of his lips.

“Hey, hey now, I may be a dork but I’m _your_ dork.”

And that’s true. He is Jared’s dork. More importantly he is the exact opposite of the people Jared is currently running from, and that’s refreshing. He hasn’t spent a whole lot of time with wholesome people lately, and Jensen is about as soft and inoffensive as a comforter as far as Jared can tell.

“So what part of Texas are you from?”

Jensen hums for a second as he gets on the highway, and Jared is impressed by how smoothly the man handles the big car.

“Richardson originally. Outside of Dallas. And you said you were from San Antonio right?”

Had he? He didn’t remember saying that, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t. Jared’s brain is so fried right now.

“Uh. Yeah. Spurs forever!”

Jensen’s face goes a little sour and he puckers his lips and shoots Jared a look.

“Well there’s our first fight. Mavs man. How could you not support the Mavs?”

“Because they suck?”

Jensen’s offended splutter sets off a laugh in Jared, and he doesn’t miss the softening in Jensen’s eyes or how the alpha smiles in response as if Jared’s laugh is the best thing he’s ever heard.

“We got a little over nineteen hours of drive time with no bad traffic for me to argue that point, and my GPS says we’re gonna hit some construction that’ll give us a little more. I’ll convert you to the side of good before we get there.”

“That is highly unlikely. A million years wouldn’t be enough time to make me consider rooting for the Mavs.”

Jensen settles a little more into the leather bench seat, and then looks over at Jared properly.

“Well then I’ll take a million years.”

And in that moment? It doesn’t sound like a horrible idea.

\---

 

Jared wakes up to a parking lot, some kind of restaurant he doesn’t recognize, and he rubs his eyes sleepily and looks over at Jensen. The alpha is texting, face set into some sort of blank mask, and for a moment he’s unrecognizable to Jared. The only looks he’s ever seen on his mate are all so expressive, but this one gives away nothing at all.

He clears his throat and watches Jensen jump a little before looking at him guiltily.

“Sorry. Problem at work. I’m trying to figure out how to fix it from a distance.”

Jared rubs his eyes again and pushes himself fully upright. The scent of smoked barbeque and grilled steak drift out of the restaurant, and his stomach loudly protests them still being outside and not actively filling it.

“Oh? What do you do?”

“I’m a contractor. I was in LA to look at a potential job, but my home office is back in Dallas.”

Jared wonders about the Colorado ID, but he’s afraid to ask and bring up his snooping.

“Like houses and stuff?”

Jensen smiles then, and Jared feels all the tension slide out at the sight.

“Yeah. Houses and stuff. Hey, you’ve been out for a couple hours. You hungry?”

And he is. So hungry. They head into the restaurant and take a seat in a booth. Jared tries to make sure his legs are pulled all the way in while simultaneously finding the section of the menu with the most red meat and adjusting his silverware so his elbows won’t knock it. Years of awkwardness have taught him to set the stage early.

He practically jumps on the waitress when she arrives, placing an order for the biggest steak they’ll give him and a soda to wash it down. Jensen copies him with a smile and then waits for her to be gone.

“So, a red meat man huh?”

Jared nods eagerly, eyes roving over the place now that he’s awake and his stomach is slightly appeased by the promise of a coming meal.

“I eat like a horse. Momma said I was lucky I didn’t bankrupt them as a kid.”

Jensen laughs, settling into the booth and idly spinning his knife with his right hand.

“Sounds about right. I bet you had one hell of a growth spurt.”

“Oh yeah. Two years and three feet. I was aching all the time, but I was glad to finally be big. Runs in my family you know. My brother is actually taller than me.”

There’s a low whistle from across the table and an appreciative look.

“That’s pretty big. If your momma is as tall as you I might be a little intimidated.”

“No, mom’s a little smaller, but don’t worry about that. She’ll be so happy I finally mated you could probably be nine kinds of shady and she’d still be stoked.”

Jensen lifts an eyebrow as the waitress drops off their drinks and slips off with barely a word.

“Why are you so opposed to mating?”

He plays with his straw for a second before taking a long drink of his soda. The answer seemed so much simpler when there wasn’t someone right in front of him to have their feelings hurt by it.

“I feel like it boxes me in. It’s exactly what everyone always expected me to do, and I didn’t want to be predictable. I didn’t want to just get mated and have kids like every other omega in my class. I wanted to learn who I was and have my own life.”

“How’d that work out?”

“Well, I moved to LA, got a job at Vitaly’s shop, and my own place. I get to decide when I go out and what I do, and any night I want to come home and eat mac and cheese while watching mindless television super-loud I can. As long as I don’t upset my neighbors.”

Jared manages, by the barest hint of willpower, not to put his hand on his stomach and cradle the baby growing there. The one that will change all of that. Instead he keeps his hands on the table and his mouth near the straw. If Jensen notices him twitching he’s good enough not to say anything.

“A shop? So you work retail?” There’s something odd about the tone Jensen uses, but Jared forgets it moments later when a steak appears in front of him and his mouth fills with saliva at the smell and sight.

He starts cutting into it immediately, talking without thinking as his knife slices through the tender meat and juices bleed out into the baked potato beside it.

“Tattoo parlor. It’s not the most upscale of places, but they’ll let an omega work there in a primarily alpha setting.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I have to do a lot of work for Vitaly’s friends and acquaintances, but I have my own customers who like me, and I’m building up good word of mouth you know? So I feel like I’m making my own way there. One day I wanna open my own place, and hire nothing but omega artists. Then, when the alphas come in, we can-”

Jared looks up to see if Jensen is reacting to the disgust and superiority in his tone, but that pleasant and dorky smile is still firmly in place. He realizes too late he’s matching Jensen’s dorkiness as a bite of steak is literally hanging in the air an inch from his open mouth. Jensen reaches out and gently leads the bite into his mouth before releasing Jared’s hand and nodding encouragingly.

“The steaks are supposed to be awesome here.”

His hand stutters on its way back up, and Jensen tilts his head at it.

“Did you…did you look up a steak place to stop at with me?”

Jensen’s face goes through a progression of emotions that lead to the funniest and most endearing blush Jared has ever seen. Freckles stand out against the redness, and Jensen rubs his hair and looks away before answering.

“Yeah. I might have done that. A little.”

“Is this a date?”

They’re mates already. As much as Jared isn’t sure how to qualify that statement, or how much involvement with its meaning he really wants, the idea of Jensen wooing him is insane. At best when an alpha finds their omega mate they wait until biology takes over and the mating is finalized, and at worst they simply take what they want.

Instead Jensen is acting like he can talk Jared into agreeing to what fate has already commanded. As if Jared had a choice. And the idea of that is more than a little appealing. That Jensen believes Jared is autonomous enough to laugh in the face of thousands of years of precedent.

“Yeah. Sort of. If you want it to be.”

And in that moment? He really does.

By the time the steak is gone Jared has told Jensen about his entire family, Mark, and his school years. He’s edited the details enough that Jensen doesn’t know the exact depths of his geekery, but left in enough that Jensen gets how out of place Jared was in his own home. It’s not that his family judged him for his chosen path, although there was probably a little bit of that, but that they just didn’t understand. His mother was happily mated, his brother found his mate at eighteen, and Meg was pretty sure she knew hers by the time she was fifteen. But Jared…

He had decided to be alone. And his family didn’t get why someone would choose that form of self-imposed isolation over what they considered perfect happiness. He didn’t blame them for it, he simply couldn’t agree with it.

That being said, here he was having dinner with an incredibly kind and thoughtful alpha who was meant for him. And the guy wanted to give Jared a choice about the whole thing. Which was…unbelievable. It made Jared rethink a lot of his judgments about the whole process, because if Jensen had been any other way Jared would have repudiated him in a moment. Instead, here they were laughing over dessert like old friends and sharing stories.

Or. Jared was sharing stories.

“So, now it’s your turn.”

Jensen looked up from his plate, only the berries left from his serving of cheesecake, and then licked some of the cream from the corner of his lips. Which served to make Jared blindingly hard and incredibly wet in seconds. He tried to tamp it down, but from the look on Jensen’s face he’d picked up on it fairly quickly.

“Maybe we should table that discussion. I was thinking I’d get us separate hotel rooms and we’d start again in the morning. Sleeping in the car really isn’t good for your neck.”

Jared makes the decision in an instant, and his mouth moves even as his brain settles on it.

“We could share a room.”

His mate tilts his head again, eyes serious and shadowed darkly.

“I want that Jared. I want it very much. But you have to want it too. We can just sleep in the same bed, and nothing will happen. Or we could do more. But this is all up to you. I won’t push you one way or another.”

For just a second Jared toys with the idea of telling Jensen no now that he’s offered it, just to see what Jensen will do. If it’s real or just an act that the alpha is pulling off convincingly to lure Jared in.

Except it isn’t. Every line of Jensen’s body and every miniscule expression in his face says Jensen is serious. If Jared says no now, he’ll pay for Jared to sleep in a separate room and say nothing one way or another. This is his mate.

This is _his_ mate.

“Let’s share.”


	3. Chapter 3

Jensen is laughing, low and in the back of his throat, as Jared pins him against the wall and eats at his mouth. There’s no growling alpha here, not anymore, and Jared sets the pace now that his heat isn’t a factor in their mating.

They fall into the bed together, and Jensen lays back and lets Jared take over as he peels Jensen’s clothes off and kisses the skin that’s exposed. He can smell how aroused Jensen is, see it in the strain of his dick against the denim of Jensen’s jeans, and he laps at the smooth and unmarked skin beneath Jensen’s tattoo.

There is a small growl when he nips at the skin under the tattoo, right above one of Jensen’s ribs, and he can’t help the shit eating grin he flashes his mate.

Jensen’s skin is soft, smells delicious, and Jared runs his nose along the length of his mate’s ribs and down over his hip. He hears a moan, and then his hands are pulling Jensen’s jeans down to expose his cock. He remembers thinking it was almost as big as his, but on second inspection he’s pretty sure that Jensen is almost exactly the same size.

Except for the knot.

Jared nuzzles at the base of Jensen’s dick where his knot will eventually be fully swollen, and then runs his nose up the length of mostly hard flesh as he tests the smell and texture of it. Jensen moans, hands fisted in the cover of the bed, and Jared grins again before sticking just the tip of his tongue out and running it up the vein on the underside of Jensen’s dick.

“Sweetheart. Jared. You gotta. Oh fuck, please, something. Because that’s not enough friction to do anything but make me crazy.”

When he speaks Jared’s voice sounds too wrecked for being the one in control. For having been touched so little in response. But the way Jensen is reacting to him, letting him take control, overwhelmed by the smallest of gestures, it’s making Jared hotter than it has any right to.

“What if I want you crazy?”

Jensen lets out a little cry when Jared swipes his tongue across the head of Jensen’s dick and collects the pre-come gathering there.

“Then you win.”

And Jared likes that. He likes winning. At the same time he wants to confirm that it wasn’t just his heat that made the experience so amazing the first time.

“What do you want Jensen?”

There’s silence for a tortuously long time, Jared’s tongue making random patterns and contact with Jensen’s skin as his mate’s heels dig into the bed and his hands pull at the sheets, and then Jensen speaks with his eyes screwed shut and his mouth in a tight line.

“I want to taste you again. I want to know how good you taste when my head’s clear.”

Jared looks up at Jensen’s face for a moment, weighs his options, and then moves up onto his knees to remove his shirt. He unbuttons his jeans, and is just unzipping the fly when Jensen finally opens his eyes and looks at him. Jensen can’t keep his gaze, eyes sweeping all along the length of Jared’s body as his tongue moves across his lips and his dick jumps untouched.

And that’s what makes up Jared’s mind. The intensity of Jensen’s gaze, the unpredictability of it as Jensen acts like a kid in a candy store who can’t pick which of the many treats he wants to take home. His eyes settle on Jared’s dick, follow it as Jared moves up the bed on his knees, and then Jensen’s pink lips are parting as he sucks the head of Jared’s dick into his mouth.

From there it’s a fight to go slow, to only feed Jensen so much of his dick at a time, so he can watch the way those pretty lips stretch around him. How the eyes, so beautiful and golden-green, look up at him through heavy lashes in a way that’s almost demur. Jensen’s fingers stay rooted in the bedspread, and Jared wants to link his fingers with Jensen’s.

It’s not porno quality intense.  There’s no headboard slamming, throat fucking intensity to it. Jared doesn’t want Jensen to submit to him so much as he wants to see Jensen open up for him. Let him in.

And Jensen is fulfilling that wish. Jared is a little more than halfway down before Jensen puts a hand on his hip and stops him. He can feel the tightness of Jensen’s lips around his dick, the wet and warm movements of Jensen’s tongue along the shaft, and then Jensen isn’t pressing on him anymore and Jared is sliding in until he feels Jensen’s throat.

He’s fully in, buried in Jensen’s mouth, and he starts to move nice and slow letting Jensen relax around him.

It feels perfect, and the little sounds Jensen makes vibrate against his cock and set his teeth on edge as he tries to control himself. And the whole time they keep eye contact, even when Jensen’s eyes squint a bit as Jared reaches his throat.

Jared focuses on the flecks in his eyes, the way the colors shade together so perfectly, like sunlight through tree branches. He’s waxing poetic while an alpha, his alpha, sucks his dick. Maybe there’s something to this mating thing that Jared never believed would happen to him, because here he is being romantic in a time when he would historically only be thinking about the sex aspect of this.

Not that he’s not thinking about how good it feels to have Jensen suck him off, or what it’ll be like to be split open on Jensen’s cock again. He is. He’s thinking about how amazing it was when Jensen was rimming him last time, and how good it’ll be to have all that alpha muscle put to use manhandling him. But he’s also wondering if maybe Jensen can read his thoughts simply from the look on his face.

If Jensen is wondering what Jared likes best, or where this is going. If he’s thinking about the future, or the past, or rooted firmly in the present.

And _that_ is out of character for Jared. Sex has always been about the immediate pleasure of the thing, and the exterior thought processes that go into it have simply been background fodder that Jared let work on their own.

He pulls out of Jensen’s mouth slowly, enjoying the pop sound and the way Jensen chases his dick with his mouth for a second before letting Jared escape him. He’s already wet enough, and biology is kind enough that stretching isn’t necessary at this moment. So Jared moves with less grace than he would like so that he’s mounting Jensen before he lines the head of Jensen’s dick up with his hand and slides down.

It feels so good, the thick length of his mate nudging his rim, pushing in, and spearing him open. Even better is the unadulterated awe on Jensen’s face as he watches Jared. There’s hesitation before Jensen puts his hands on Jared’s hips, and Jared lets Jensen get settled before he slides all the way down and feels the beginnings of Jensen’s knot swelling.

He rides slow and gentle, eyes locked with Jensen’s, mouth open in a long slow moan that won’t resolve itself into words, and hands settled on Jensen’s shoulders. He loves the way that Jensen opens his mouth as if he had something to say and instead simply groans Jared’s name. The way those callused fingers tighten and relax on his skin, and how he can feel the tension in Jensen’s thighs as his mate tries not to thrust up into him.

Jared keeps the tortuously slow pace going for what feels like forever, the two of them trapped in this little world they’re creating, and then he lets out a small cry as he drops faster than he planned and feels the half-swollen knot press hard against his rim.

“Jensen. Jensen.”

“What? Anything Jared. Name it.”

“Fuck me.”

And Jensen does. The gentle pace is forgotten as Jensen grips his hips and pulls him down while slamming upwards. Jared cries out again and again, prostate being hit and cock bobbing as Jensen fucks him silly.

One hand leaves his hip and wraps around his cock, and Jared tries to figure out how to properly move so that he’s fucking down onto Jensen’s cock and up into his hand. It’s delicious, perfect, and the combination of friction and penetration does him in. Jared orgasms, come splattering over Jensen’s stomach and chest, and feels the swollen knot pop into his rim and lock into place. He hovers upright for just a second, watching the look of intense pleasure twist Jensen’s face up, and then he collapses on top of his mate heavily as his heart begins to slow and his breath evens out.

They’re firmly tied, Jared’s head pillowed on Jensen’s chest, when the rumble of Jensen’s voice disturbs the peace.

“My mother was an alpha and my father an omega.”

Jared swallows, because there’s a tone here that he knows but didn’t expect. Something sad and bitter, but fond all at once.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Mom was a workaholic. A contractor like me. She taught me everything I know.”

He kisses once over Jensen’s heart, enjoys the happy rumble that shakes his head a little, and feels strong fingers stroke through his hair, working out the occasional sweaty tangle.

“But not Dad. He was totally relaxed. He liked to watch silly movies or play hours and hours of board games. I think I must have worn holes in Monopoly from digging my piece in when I was annoyed that I was losing. And he was so dedicated to the idea of me learning. Mom may have taught me about work ethic, but my dad taught me to love learning. To question and to push. I adored him.”

Jared doesn’t want to point out the past tense verb. Imagines that the story is headed there without him pushing. Instead he rubs Jensen’s ribs softly, trying to comfort instead of tickle, and from the deep breath Jensen lets out he assumes it works.

“When I was fifteen I came home to find my dad dead. Murdered. My mom blamed herself, but an investigation proved it was just random. A home invasion gone wrong. They must have seen the lack of cars in the driveway and assumed no one was home.”

Jared sucks in a breath, an apology on the tip of his tongue, but he’s silenced by the coldness in Jensen’s tone.

“They came to steal a TV and robbed a family of its joy instead. My mother was never the same, and after the two of us moved she became even more obsessed with her work. And I followed in her footsteps.”

“Where’s your mom now?”

Jensen takes a second, fingers rubbing into the suddenly tight muscles in Jared’s neck, and he resists the urge to purr considering the topic they’re discussing.

“She retired. Took off for a spiritual journey overseas. I get an email from her about once a week checking on the business, and asking how I am. But it’s not the same. Dad was the glue that held us together and kept us…emotionally bonded. And that’s ok. That’s never really been my mom. I don’t hold it against her.”

Jared tries to imagine what it would be like to not be close to his parents. To not know, even when they’re so far apart or lacking in immediate communication, that if he needed they would be there for him immediately. Hell, he planned this trip before he even thought to call and ask if he could come home.

“Jensen. I’m sorry. I can’t- I can’t imagine how I would handle any of that.”

His mate swallows once, and then Jared feels a kiss pressed to the top of his head.

“It’s ok. Dad always used to say one day I would find a mate, and that would be my new family. That I would have to work to stay connected to my old one the same way. So, that’s how I’m looking at it. I’ve got my family right here.”

Jared almost says it. Almost lets it slip that the statement is more true than Jensen knows since pinned between them is the growing life that they created on Saturday.

Instead he snuggles closer into Jensen and lets the strong beat of his mate’s heart lull him to sleep.

 

\---

 

In the morning Jared finally pulls his phone out and turns it on while Jensen is in the shower. He has three missed calls from his mom, one from his dad, six from Vitaly, and another from a number he doesn’t recognize.

He hesitates before calling his voicemail, leaving the text messages for last. His mother is the first message, asking what day he thinks he’ll arrive because she’d love to greet him with pot roast. The second message is just a grunt from Vitaly, then his mother again asking him if he’d like to sleep in his old room, or if he by any chance needs the bigger bed in the guest room, and then another grunt from Vitaly.

There are only three messages left, and Jared is starting to dread them even as he hits the button to delete the last from Vitaly and move on. His mother wants to add that if he needs the guest bedroom that’d be great because his bed isn’t made yet. He looks at the bathroom door and wonders if Jensen has time to stick around like that, or if he has to get back to Dallas and his business. Then Vitaly starts talking.

_“Jared. You are not at work. You are not at home. Call me. Immediately.”_

He licks his lips, hits the delete button, and waits for the last message. It’s either Vitaly again or his unknown caller. Sure enough, a voice he doesn’t know greets him by name.

_“I’m trying to reach Jared Padalecki. This is detective Morgan with the LAPD. If he gets this message I need him to call me back at the precinct immediately. We have some questions about the death of Stanislav Zigursky. My number here is-”_

Jared hangs up, stares at the phone, and then drops it on the bed and covers his face.

Stanislav.

Three.

Three of his coworkers are now dead. Stanislav was the scarred alpha artist in the back, the one whose cubicle wall Jared shared, and the most offensive of his daytime companions. Never failing to make a disgusting joke or an ugly comment regarding omegas, Jared would often cringe as the man’s mouth was opening.

And now he’s dead.

Jared lets go of the careful control he’s kept on himself and lets one of his hands cup his stomach as he reads his text messages. His neighbor has sent him several messages about seeing what looked both like cops and criminals hanging around outside his door and trying to find him. Messages from Vitaly to contact him immediately.

He’s so fucked. The shower has stopped, and Jared’s hands are shaking hard. So he dials the cop’s number and waits for someone to answer before asking for Detective Morgan through a mouth that feels like it’s full of sand.

“This is Jared. Padalecki.”

_“Mr. Padalecki. The Feds and I are looking for you. Where are you?”_

Jared looks around the room. He doesn’t even know. He slept through the last few hours before they stopped for dinner, was focused entirely on Jensen for the drive from the restaurant to the bedroom, and hasn’t even bothered asking his mate how far they made it yesterday.

“I’m on a trip. I needed to- you said Stanislav is dead? How did he die?”

_“Mr. Padalecki, we need you to come in. Or, if you’re already a good distance away we need to find the nearest federal office and get you situated there so an agent can start talking to you. There’s a good chance you’re in a lot of trouble, and from how fast you took off I’m assuming you know that.”_

His hand is clutching the phone tight, the other moving in idle patterns over his stomach and the baby that is growing underneath.  As strange and contradictory to his nature as it is, Jared wants Jensen in that moment so badly it hurts physically. He wants to feel those strong arms around him and smell the comforting scent of his mate so that he knows that they’re safe.

Which is ridiculous because Jensen doesn’t know about the baby and certainly isn’t the type of alpha to go to war. Jared’s pretty sure if Jensen ever got into a fight he’d be lucky to walk away with all his parts attached. And an altercation with Vitaly or someone like him? Jensen wouldn’t survive.

And Jared is supremely opposed to the idea of Jensen not surviving.

“I don’t know anything Detective. As you mentioned I’m on a trip, and I wasn’t there when Stanislav was murdered and I don’t know anything about what happened.”

There’s a sigh, and Jared hears someone talking briefly in the background before Detective Morgan’s voice rumbles back down the line. He sounds hesitant, almost unsure, but he delivers the message without any mercy.

_“Mr. Padalecki, I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you. You and I both know that you’re at least aware the people you work for aren’t on the up and up. We also both know that Stanislav isn’t the first death, and that he won’t be the last. What you probably don’t know is that the feds standing in my office right now are less interested in your boss and his men than they are in the man targeting him. Have you ever heard the name Santa Muerte?”_

He remembers Vitaly and the big alpha arguing, the looks on their faces, and how even in the moment Jared had sensed a little bit of terror in them. Remembers how hard it unsettled him.

“I…might have heard it. It’s Spanish for Saint Death right?”

_“Something like that yes. Except in this case it’s a contract killer that was hired to wipe out Vitaly’s little crew and send him a message. A killer that the agents in my office have a file on about a foot thick and have been chasing for a very long time. This information goes back at least thirty years. And we think you’re in danger from him.”_

Distantly Jared thinks he hears the door opening, but all of his focus is on the memory of Timur hanging from the wall, throat slit and shirt covered in his own blood. Jared keeps his hand pressed tight against his stomach as he tries to make his voice not give away the abject terror pumping through his veins and the way his heart has kicked into overdrive.

“I’m not part of whatever Vitaly is a part of. I don’t even know what Vitaly is a part of. I’m just a tattoo artist. I don’t know shit. So nobody is coming after me. Why would they be coming after me?”

_“Because the last living member of your work place besides Vitaly has already turned himself in for protective custody, and he states that there was another death recently. And that you not only saw the body, but were attacked by Santa Muerte in the process. Whatever you may have seen, or heard, or even smelled would provide the federal government or the men that Vitaly works for with more evidence than they’ve ever had before. You’re a witness Mr. Padalecki. Even if you don’t want to believe it. And whether you plan on talking to us or not I assure you Santa Muerte is not going to care. You’re a loose end, and he’s been around for too long to leave any.”_

A whole series of images plays out in Jared’s mind. Movies and television shows he’s seen, books he’s read, all painting a vivid portrait of the sort of future that Jared is in for. At best he will be thrown into some mediocre life in witness protection, not allowed to do what he wants and probably forced to work the kind of job where he has to cover his tattoos and pretend to smile at shithead customers. And that’s the best case scenario. Never seeing his family again and living a mediocre life being both bored and miserable. More likely, he’ll go in to see the officers, and never make it to the stand alive. Especially if this hitman is as good as the detective is saying he is.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything. You put that down in your files. Jared. Padalecki. Doesn’t. Know. Shit. And you tell the agents that too. I’m not talking to anyone, I’m not going into protective custody, and I’m not a witness. I don’t know shit. You got me?”

_“I understand you’re scared but I-”_

Jared blinks at the sudden silence, the emptiness of his hand, and then he realizes Jensen is standing in front of him and holding his phone. Jensen’s voice, when it comes out, is unrecognizable. Cold and controlled. But his mate’s hand is shaking just the tiniest bit as it holds the phone.

“Detective. This is Jared’s mate. I suggest from now on you speak to his lawyer, a gentleman in Dallas, Texas named Christian Kane. Until you’ve done that my mate has nothing else to say to you and would like to continue his vacation without being harassed by incompetent cops.”

Jensen hangs up, and then drops the phone on the bed and watches it bounce before turning to Jared. The coldness in his mate’s face dissolves into concern and warmth as Jensen crouches down and cups Jared’s face gently.

“You ok? Jared? You alright?”

He swallows, lip trembling, and then throws his arms around Jensen. It’s childish, everything he’s ever hated about omegas, but Jared clings as he cries because oh god it is good to have another human being on his side. To have someone there to hold him up while everything around him falls apart. If Jensen was just a little different, a little more traditional, Jared wouldn’t be able to enjoy this comfort because he would focus on the fact that everything affecting him outside of Vitaly is Jensen’s fault.

Or partly Jensen’s fault. Or their biology’s fault and Jensen as the convenient scapegoat. If he’s being fair, which at the moment Jared is inclined to do.

Jared tries to think of a way to explain this to Jensen that won’t sound insane, or make him sound stupid for staying even though he knew something was wrong with Vitaly and his shop. A way that won’t make him finally admit out loud what he always subconsciously knew; that he had basically chosen Vitaly to repeat Mark’s experiences with the bike club.

Except there is no way. He put himself here. He opened this door and didn’t care where it went. Jared’s need to be revolutionary, to be edgy and wild, has made him the target of a contract killer, on the run with a baby in his stomach and a clueless mate behind the wheel. His bullshit philosophy that being just like Mark would make him unique has doomed the two of them, and Jensen doesn’t have the slightest clue. Is trying to protect Jared from himself without even knowing it.

“I’m marked for death.”

Jensen’s eyebrow shoots up so high that it makes Jared burst into high and hysterical laughter, tears leaking out at the same time, and Jensen’s shock turns back into worry pretty rapidly. He starts to pet Jared gently, voice low and soothing, and that only makes Jared feel worse.

“It’s ok. It’s ok Jared. No one’s gonna hurt you. Just tell me what’s happening ok? What did the cop want?”

It spills out of him, wild and uncontrolled, and it feels so good to say it out loud to someone who cares, even if Jared knows there’s nothing Jensen can do about it.

“I work for this Russian guy, Vitaly, and I knew he wasn’t a good guy. I knew it. But he was willing to let an omega work in his shop, and my mentor worked for criminals, and I thought it would teach me a lot and give me stories I thought it would make me someone interesting and tough instead of gangly, dorky old Jared Padalecki. Mark did it. Mark did it and all he had was stories and what the fuck did it matter, right? I would get some experience and be able to parlay it into my own shop and who cared what I was doing? I saw that stupid movie, too. I saw it. I knew what I was doing even if I told myself I didn’t.”

Hard hands wipe tenderly at his wet face, and the fingertips catch on the smooth skin of his cheek and drag.

“What movie? Jared, I don’t understand.”

Of course he doesn’t.

“The one about the Russian mafia and their tattoos. They’re symbolic. Each one tells what kind of criminal they are. And that’s what I’ve been doing. Putting their fucking badges of honor on their skin. I knew it but I just didn’t want to know it. And now they’re dying. Vitaly’s men are dying, and I saw- I witnessed one of them dying. I was in the same room as the guy that’s killing them and they think I smelled him. And the cops want me to testify. And Vitaly wants to find me because he probably thinks I will. So there’s a hitman out to kill me and an angry Russian mobster that wants to kill me and I’ve dragged you into this and I’m pregnant.”

He feels the shock unfurling from Jensen, and he waits for the anger and recrimination that he so richly deserves.

“You’re- you know that? For sure? You know for sure that you’re pregnant?”

Leave it to Jared to find a mate that can’t put two and two together, but can give him his space and autonomy.

“Yeah. I mean I haven’t gotten a test, but my heat stopped that first night. There’s only one reason for that.”

Jensen’s mouth is partially open, big green eyes wide and shocked, and then he proceeds to throw Jared totally off by wrapping his arms around him and pulling him into a tight hug.

“Oh my god. Oh my god Jared. Jared you’re pregnant. We’re pregnant.”

He hugs back, tight and desperate, and absorbs the way Jensen’s chest rises and falls rapidly, the way his mate’s heart is beating against him so strong, and how incredibly enveloping that smell is. Bonfires and pine trees. Home. His mate smells like home.

“Yeah. We’re pregnant. But Jensen, the-”

The grip on him tightens, and Jensen’s voice is a comforting rumble that shakes Jared even as it soothes him.

“No. No buts. You’re going to be safe and fine. I promise. We’re going to get you through this, and you’re going to be fine. Both of you. Jared. Thank you. Thank you for this.”

“For what? For getting knocked up or putting you in the middle of a firefight between killers?”

Jensen laughs, surprising Jared for the millionth time since they met not so long ago, and then pulls back enough to look Jared in the eye. His face is nothing but joy and awe, and Jared isn’t sure if he should be impressed by Jensen’s optimism or afraid of the sheer arrogance of it in the face of everything else.

“For giving me a family. An incredible mate, and now a baby. For doing that despite it not being what you wanted. “

“You’re not even mad I didn’t tell you and took off on you?”

Jensen tilts his head, and then leans in and kisses Jared. It’s sweet, dry and warm lips pressing firmly against Jared’s and the warm tongue he’s come to know so well pressing softly before Jared gives it entrance. They kiss for a long time, Jared wrapped in Jensen and letting himself be consumed and comforted by his mate.

When Jensen finally pulls back Jared is so dumbstruck he can’t even think to form words.

“I’m not mad. Not mad in the least. We all have baggage Jared. One day you might have to forgive me for mine, so it’s good for me to set a precedent, right?”

Jared is going to have to get used to Jensen throwing him off balance, or else this relationship is going to drive him totally insane.

“I think you’re insane.”

“I think you’re wonderful.”

He feels his lower lip shaking again, unsure about how to deal with being forgiven so completely and immediately for something so terrible, and then he pulls Jensen back into a tight hug.

“Yeah. I think you are too.”

And the way the hug tightens? How happy Jensen seems in response to that?

Well, it’s a lot more touching than Jared imagined it would be.


	4. Chapter 4

Jensen spends a good deal of time outside of the hotel room on his phone, and when he comes back in he looks a little tired, but he stills seems positive about the whole thing. And it’s dangerous, but his positivity is starting to affect Jared too.

“Ok, so, I talked to my lawyer Chris. He says that if the cops or the feds want to they can pull you in on trumped up charges to make you talk. Or at least hold you until you’re more likely to talk. So the first thing we need to do is get you out of their reach for a bit while he ties their hands. And then we can figure out the rest. It’s not a permanent solution, but it is a fairly good stop gap. Does that sound ok?”

He touches his stomach again, a habit that seems to have become unavoidable since Jensen learned the truth and he has no reason to hide it, and then he swallows thickly.

“Yeah. Yeah it sounds good. But what exactly does it mean?”

“Well, for one, it’s gonna be a little bit longer before I meet your family. And you’re going to have to disappoint your momma a little bit.”

And that isn’t as much of a surprise as he wants it to be, but it certainly isn’t happy news.

“I’m going to have to swear to her that she’ll get to meet you. And. Well. I’m going to the have to tell her about you in general. Is that ok?”

Jensen looks a little hurt for a second before he nods.

“If you want to. Do you want to?”

Jared remembers those self-help tapes. How badly he thought he needed them when he was feeling alone and weak, and then how much he hated himself for wanting to change and conform to be a little less lonely. He doesn’t necessarily think he was wrong then to change his mind, but wonders how much of that attitude he’s shown to make Jensen think he’d be ashamed or unhappy to claim him.

Then again, Jensen has just been told that Jared knew he was mated and pregnant and slipped out in the early morning hours to avoid both. So. It’s more than a little earned, and makes him feel like a giant ass.

“Yeah. I really want to. I want to share with her how happy I am.”

And that puts the smile back on Jensen’s face.

“Ok, so tell her that we’ll set up another time, but for now you and I are taking our time to bond. How does that sound?”

“It…it sounds good. You’re taking this really well, and that makes me worried that you’re not actually dealing with it.”

Jensen looks up from where he’s repacking his bag, and Jared doesn’t miss how incredibly fastidious all of his folding and placing is. His mate is a little OCD.

“Jared, I have a mate and a baby.” Jensen breaks off for a second as a huge smile overtakes his face and turns him from serious to goofy. “And that means I have more to lose than I ever imagined I would. So yeah, ok, I may be looking at this a little more positively than you think I should, but I promise I am taking it very seriously and thinking as many steps ahead as I possibly can. In my line of work it’s always necessary to plan ahead. I don’t think the hitman is our concern. If he was that riled up about you being there he would have come for you already. Instead I think we need to focus on you staying out of the spotlight until Vitaly is out of the picture. If they’ve already got someone who will talk then there’s a good chance whoever it is will give the cops enough for them to arrest him. We just need to give them time.”

“Holy shit, you really have thought this out.”

Jensen blushes and rubs the back of his neck, a mannerism that Jared finds endlessly endearing in an alpha.

“Yeah, well, I’m a little anal.”

And that one he won’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

“So, what are we going to do?”

Jensen zips up his bag and sets it upright before really looking at Jared.

“I’ve got a cabin in upstate Texas that nobody knows about other than my mom and my lawyer. It’s really isolated. We’re going to head up there and settle down. Wait it out. He’ll keep the authorities busy so that when it’s over you’re not facing charges, and we’ll actually bond. For real.”

He swallows and then pushes himself up so he can shove his own scattered clothes into his bag. It’s moving fast now, faster than he planned, and Jared isn’t scared of bonding with Jensen so much as he is that this is all a fever dream. That in reality he’s just lying in bed back at his apartment, pregnant and waiting for death.

And that’s when it hits him. How very close he was to death. The hitman was right there when he found Timur. Knocked him unconscious instead of ending him. Jared reaches out for Jensen and finds his mate there in a second.

“What? Are you ok? Is it the baby? Jared?”

“I could have died. The baby and I could have died. The killer was right there and we could have died. He must have run off before he had time because Vitaly was coming.”

A dark look crosses Jensen’s face, foreign to the expressions Jared has gotten so used to, and then it’s gone and Jensen is just holding him up.

“I don’t think that’s it. I don’t Jared. I feel like if he was really interested in killing you, and as experienced and skilled as they told you he was, then he would have done it right there. I don’t think he wants to kill you. I think he left you alive and safe for a reason. Ok? Take a deep breath. It’s ok.”

“Jensen. Jensen he’s a killer. He doesn’t care whether I’m really involved or not, he just doesn’t want to get caught.”

His mate is already shaking his head, and Jared wonders why he’s chosen this particular thing to get so passionate about.

“We shouldn’t assume that. There’s no reason to borrow trouble Jay.”

Jared lifts an eyebrow and watches the blush come over Jensen again.

“I. Sorry. Nicknames. Sorry.”

“No. No I like it. It’s what my family calls me a lot. I like it Jensen.”

And his mate grins then, all the seriousness of the previous conversation apparently forgotten. Jared’s willing to let it go.

 

\----

The cabin is beautiful, and Jared falls in love immediately. This part of Texas is hilly, the ground rocky and tough. The pines stretch high into the air, and Jared takes a deep breath of them and thinks of Jensen. He spots a fire pit on the way into the cabin and wonders if he can talk Jensen into roasting marshmallows.

It takes forever to unload all of the groceries they picked up, and Jared tries to not fall in love with Jensen based solely off the amount of meat and sugar he bought without being prompted. He gets a hands-on tour of the kitchen as they unpack everything , and then Jensen takes him through the big one-room cabin and up into the loft that contains the bed.

Soft. It’s soft and huge, and Jared settles down into it and falls asleep almost instantly. The stress of the trip, of lying to his momma when she squealed and cheered over his finally finding a mate, has gotten to him. Jensen is content to tuck him in and stay until Jared is almost fully asleep. Then his mate slips off so silently Jared doesn’t realize he’s gone until he rolls over and finds empty bed space.

Jared sleeps until the sun has gone down, wakes up to darkness and follows the lights from downstairs to the kitchen area. Jensen is standing in front of the prep island handling a knife like a professional chef as he chops vegetables.

“Hey. You want some help?”

Jensen looks up, hands moving automatically and smoothly, and Jared watches in wonder. How many things does he not know about Jensen? How much will he learn while they’re here in their self-imposed isolation?

“Sure, can you make hamburger patties?”

They chat about nothing as Jared forms the meat carefully. He was allowed to help his momma cook, but he’d never been very good at it, and never been interested in learning. Too traditional for his tastes. It appears he’s lucked out again because Jensen is so handy in the kitchen Jared won’t even really need to cook.

“Hey, uh, Jensen?”

His mate looks up from the pan of oil he’s heating up and smiles, face bright in the kitchen lights and Jared is momentarily unable to breathe at how absolutely stunning Jensen is.

“Jared?”

“Yeah. Yeah sorry. I was just wondering if. Do you. I know it’s fast, and I seem to have serious commitment issues, but do you want to. To make this official? After all this mess is over? We could do that.”

Jensen’s face becomes something that is hard to look at, his joy overwhelming as he drops the spatula and rounds the island to grab Jared up in a hug.

“YES! Yes Jared I would, yes, yes please. Please, I would like that very much.”

Jared hugs back, trying to get breath through Jensen’s tight grip.

“Ok. Down. Breathing.”

“Oh shit. Yeah. Yeah of course.”  Jensen sets him down but doesn’t let go. “You really want that?”

“Yeah. I think I do. I mean…I’m not going to find anybody who will ever be as cool about what appears to be my personal vortex of weird as you are.”

Jensen grins and then lets go to drop potatoes into the oil and start frying up the hamburgers in the other skillet.

“Well, my dad always said my zen would be my best chance at attracting a mate.”

“Your body and face don’t hurt.”

Jensen waggles his tongue and then settles into the routine of cooking. Jared watches him for a bit before looking out the big picture window across the cabin. The darkness beyond is deep, and Jared wonders how many times Jensen has come up here alone. It’s beautiful, but it would be awfully lonely without someone else.

“Did you get the Tower because of your Dad?”

He doesn’t plan to ask it, regrets it instantly, but Jensen’s face is still relaxed as he fishes out home fries and drops them on a paper towel before flipping the burgers.

“My mom actually. She’s…I told you Dad’s death hit her really hard right? Made her more work obsessed?”

“Yeah. You mentioned that.”

Jensen stares at the burgers contemplatively, the look on his face saying he is far away and long ago.

“Well, for a little while her work got way more dangerous than it had ever been. And I was right there with her. Dropped out of school and everything so we could go on more and more trips across the border. Because I had to learn the trade and fast. I think she knew then that she couldn’t do it much longer. Contract work is too precise, and she was too messed up to keep that level of precision.”

He fiddles with the knife in front of him, staring at the chopped vegetables on the board as he processes that.

“You guys built houses in Mexico?”

Jensen flips the burgers again before putting the spatula down and looking at Jared.

“We did a lot of work in Mexico. Mom’s best clients were down that way, and they had a lot of work for her after Dad died. Maybe before too, but she had more reason to be home before that. I was actually fluent in Spanish by the time I was ten.”

He’s moving then, plating burgers and putting out condiments as Jared swallows all of that down. Jensen puts a big plate of fries in front of Jared and then adds two burgers. And Jared doesn’t argue for portion control, because he can definitely down both of them.

Conversation flows easily once the topic changes, and Jared is pleased to find that while they don’t have exactly the same taste in movies and music, Jensen is open to trying new things and converting Jared to his own. And Jared likes that. Likes that their differences will make this interesting.

He wonders where they’ll end up. If Jensen’s home base of operations is in Dallas maybe he can look at opening a shop there. There’s no reason to stay in LA at this point, and Jared doesn’t think he’d want to anyway.

It’s a thought for a later time, because dinner is finished and Jared is pleasantly full and ready to fall asleep again. They shower together, sharing kisses and slow and gentle handjobs that last until the water runs cold and Jared comes on Jensen’s thigh. Then they fall into bed together, naked and wet, and Jared curls into Jensen and falls asleep.

This time he’s pretty sure Jensen stays.

 

\---

Days pass smoothly. They go fishing together on the lake near Jensen’s cabin, and Jared laughs at all of Jensen’s stories about coming here as a kid and learning the hard way what not to do on a boat from his father. They roast marshmallows at night, watch what few movies Jensen has at the cabin together, and Jared learns more about cooking than he ever thought he would from watching Jensen.

Biology may have blindsided him with Jensen, may have tricked him into losing his chemically controlled grip on his body, but it has pretty good taste.

And Jared isn’t ashamed to say that he’s falling in love with Jensen. It’s not just the hormones; it’s the man himself. He’s impossible not to love. They just fit together, and Jared feels like he’s known Jensen forever.

That thought comes back to haunt him on the eighth day of their stay at the cabin, when Jared comes downstairs to find Jensen sitting on the couch staring out the picture window at the sunrise as he taps keys on his phone blindly.

“Hey Jen. I was thinking today we’d start with omelets? How do you feel about omelets?”

Jensen doesn’t look at him, fingers still moving rapidly and eyes fixed on the horizon.

“Yeah. Sure Jared.”

It’s not like Jensen. Nothing like any side of Jensen he’s ever seen, and Jared crosses the floor in front of Jensen and gently grips his mate’s face before tilting it so that Jensen is looking right at him.

“What’s wrong?”

Jensen licks his lips, eyes still somewhere far away even as they turn towards Jared.

“Today’s not going to be a great day for bonding Jay. I’m going to need you to go up to the loft and stay there.”

Something cold crawls up Jared’s spine as he lets go of Jensen’s chin and steps back.

“What?”

“I need you to go up to the loft, draw the curtains, and stay there for a bit. Just a little while. I’ve got to take care of something and I don’t know exactly when it’s going to happen.”

Jared takes a deep breath and then crouches so that he’s on level with Jensen.

“You want me to hide in the loft while you do something? What could you possibly need to do that would require me to hide in the loft Jensen?”

He tries, he really does, to not sound pissed off. But it’s so odd, and confusing, and Jared hasn’t had to deal with odd or confusing in days. He feels like he’s looking at a stranger. And that’s when he notices the case at Jensen’s feet. It’s unlocked, the little snaps upright, but it’s closed.

Something comes over him in that moment, and Jared reaches out and grabs the lid before lifting it. Jensen never says a word, and that’s good because Jared isn’t sure he could listen to anything Jensen has to say right then.

A rifle. A sniper rifle. Broken into pieces and packed into foam made for it. It sits in the case shiny and perfect, obviously well-loved, and without any possible logical explanation attached to it.

“Why. Why do you have this?”

“I need you to go upstairs into the loft Jared. When this over I can explain everything, but I need to take care of this. Do you understand? I thought we had a little longer, but we don’t. Please. Go upstairs.”

Jared lets go of the case and falls backwards onto his ass, bouncing a little on the hard wood floor before looking up at Jensen. His mate’s face is cold, composed, and Jared hates it. Because it’s a mockery of the doofy man that he’s fallen in love with. The silly alpha that wanted Jared to be his own person and looked like he would cry with joy when he realized Jared was pregnant.

“Jensen, you’re scaring me and I don’t like it. What’s going on?”

And the alpha that has taken over the place of his mate gets off the couch and carefully and gently lifts Jared.

“You’re going upstairs now. That last text was the heads-up from Chris that Vitaly and his hit squad just appeared on my perimeter cameras. You and the baby are going to be safe.”

Jared lets himself be led to the base of the stairs before he turns and gives in to the rage boiling under his skin. His fist strikes Jensen in the jaw and sends the alpha reeling. Jensen doesn’t strike back, but he does touch his jaw once before looking at Jared again. There’s sadness there, buried under the layers of self-control, and Jared is glad to see it.

“You can’t be. You can’t be him. They said he’d been-”

_My mother was a contractor too. Business in Mexico. Fluent in Spanish._

“Jared. We can talk about this later if you want. After I know you’re safe.”

“Just say why. Just tell me why you did this to me. Why you didn’t just fucking kill me instead of using me to get close to them.”

At that Jensen’s mask wavers, and he reaches out before stepping back.

“My mom was in this business when she met my dad. It was hard for him to accept too. But he did. And then they took him from us. These random criminals. Because they wanted a TV. So Mom started working harder, and she taught me too. Because someone has to stop them. Someone has to make them afraid. I don’t kill the innocent. I do my own research. I wasn’t there for you; I was there to put fear in your boss, to kill his murdering asshole thugs. I was just interested in you, why you’d be there, and then I got close to you in the bar and I smelled you and it was all over. I’m sorry, Jared. I really am. And if you hate me I understand, but the last step to keeping you safe is taking out Vitaly and I can’t do that properly if you’re here. So please. Please go up the stairs. Please let me do this.”

Jared swallows thickly, and then he turns without speaking and heads up the stairs. He half expects to spend his time there listening to gunfire and madness, but instead moments after he’s sat down on the bed they’ve been sharing he hears the front door close.

And then there’s silence. For a maddening hour there’s silence. Jared has time to imagine a thousand different ways in which Jensen has died. How Vitaly will come barreling up the stairs into the little space that they’ve claimed as their own. How he’ll probably kill Jared by hand, just to make sure. Or to bleed out some of his rage.

But when the door opens and closes, when the sound of footsteps reaches the stop of the stairs and Jared looks up from his hands, there’s Jensen. Jensen with dirt smudged on his face and covering his clothes. Jensen looking otherwise perfectly put together. Minus the bruise forming on his face.

“Jared?”

And he surges up, grabs Jensen’s shirt, and starts ripping at it. When Jensen tries to help, Jared shakes him so hard he can hear his mate’s teeth rattle before Jensen goes limp and just lets Jared tear the clothes off of him.

They end up in the little bathroom with Jared still dressed and dragging a naked Jensen into the shower. He starts the water up and then pushes Jensen under the spray and holds him there. Jared doesn’t realize he’s crying until Jensen’s fingers brush the tears from his face.

“Don’t you ever-you listen to me. You never get to fucking lie again. You never get to scare me like that again. Do you understand me? We’ll figure out the rest of it later when I’m not fucking crazy, but you never ever get to fucking do this again to me. Surprise me with something like this and then disappear on me. I don’t care what you think you’re doing. I’m your _mate_. I’m carrying your _baby_. You fucking never- _Goddamn you_ Jensen.”

And of course, because it’s Jensen, he’s surprised again. Jensen’s lip trembles, his face curls, and then he pulls Jared in as he begins to cry.

“Thank you. Thank you, Jay. Thank you. I’m so sorry. I promise. I promise.”

It’s not fixed, but it’s a step. A definite step.

After Jensen is clean and Jared has removed his own clothes and gotten clean himself they head to bed, and Jensen lies with his head on Jared’s still flat stomach. Jared wants to say something, something intelligent or important.

He needs to, but he can’t.

He’s realized something vital about himself today that he never expected to learn.

Jared is in love with Jensen. It’s not the fear of being a single parent or never finding someone who will fit with him so well again. Jared’s been alone before. He might not have adored it but he was ok with it. No, ultimately his decision has nothing to do with outside factors at all.

Jared is in love with Jensen, and that means that the idea of losing Jensen is naturally abhorrent. He wonders if this is how Jensen’s father felt. If he learned the truth about his mate and weighed the pros and cons before deciding that his love for her was worth more than his own morality.

Can he live with the fact that Jensen kills the sort of person that would casually murder someone like his father? That Jensen, whether he realizes it or not, is on a neverending quest for vengeance that has already been served?

He can. He can because at the end of the day the man he saw today, the killer, Santa Muerte, that’s not Jensen. It’s something he’s been taught, a title his mother passed down to him the way most parents leave heirloom China or old photo albums. It’s an identity that Jensen inherited and doesn’t know how to shake so that the warm and gentle man that Jared fell in love with has total control.

Jared can live with it because he loves Jensen, and that’s what has to matter at the end of the day.

So he sinks his fingers into Jensen’s hair and thinks of the present instead of the terrifyingly open and vague future, and the person he’s become.

**Author's Note:**

> This story has many many things that must be said about it. One, it is "ostensibly" written for the spnmpregbb, but in reality it is a late birthday gift for heartblowswild. Do you know her? You should know her. If you don't allow me to suggest that you change that immediately. She is an excellent human being and a fine friend. I'm glad I met her, and glad I've gotten to know her. I don't know how much she'll like this, but it is based on a prompt she gave me. It's going to have a timestamp eventually, because I'm not sure it's finished.
> 
> On top of that allow me to say that 2blueshoes is a super person and this is not the first time we've collaborated. Every time she is supportive, sweet, and freakishly prompt and punctual. XD Which I am not. She is also very patient, and that is something that is incredibly necessary when dealing with me. Look at the art. Looook at it.
> 
> And to tipsy_kitty, who I privately call the Queen of Sadism on a regular basis for reasons unconnected to her beta techniques, and who graciously picked this up and combed through the whole thing to see just how terrible my continuity and grammar is. And then carefully marked each instance without a single expletive! Bless you, and your incredibly patient self. I was a little intimidated to have you read this, but oh my you made it something clean and stream-lined. Thanks again, so so much!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this, and if you feel when you reach the end that I am in need of getting that timestamp out let me know. I do appreciate a good prodding. :D


End file.
